


A Soot of Ashes

by Lolymoon



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: Charmings-Mills family, Child Abuse, Evil Snowing, Gen, Headcanon, Regal Believer, Some painful feels, but it gets better
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-12
Updated: 2015-10-12
Packaged: 2018-04-26 03:21:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,523
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4988191
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lolymoon/pseuds/Lolymoon
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><em>"You brace yourself, and you waltz through the center of the room, to the tune of a broken piano, oblivious to the tears raining down your face, to the bewildered look of your instructor who doesn't know what to make of this mad house, and if you let out a gasp, you try to cover it with the music, the rustling of your dress, the sound of your steps, and you don't, you don't look into your Mother's eyes."</em> </p><p>Regina Mills learned how to dance, once, a long time ago.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Soot of Ashes

“Your feet aren't light enough.”

 

You're twirling, spinning so madly you feel sick to your stomach, your head weigh too heavily on your neck, like your spine is digging into the back of your skull, and there are flashes of blinding white everytime you have to duck under your dancing instructor's arm and whirl around the room.

  
You want to stop, you've been going at it for hours now, rehearsing the steps, the music loud in your ears, the skittish, stiff-fingered pianist playing out of tune as the lesson goes on and on. You want to stop but Mother is watching. She gauges your every move, straightens your shoulders with a stick everytime you slouch, slaps it against your thighs when you misstep, the tender back of your legs is sore now, throbbing. _What a dreadful dancer you make, my poor girl. I'd hoped at least you would inherit something of my gracefulness, but you had to take from your father's side, as always_ (like the dark skin and the unruly hair and the too-tender heart and the fear of Mother) _._ You crane your neck, look at the clock, and the stick hits you to the side of your head and a surprised cry of pain escapes your unwilling lips.

The music stops on a strident note and your dancing instructor lets go of you, casting a frightened look at Cora, but she ignores him, focused on you, always only focused on you, and you speak, quickly, before your mother can, before you can be chastised again, “Mother please. I'm so tired I keep making mistakes, I'm not learning anymore, we've been practising for hours. Please can we stop for today? I'll do better next time, I promise.”

You put on your good daughter face, the little mask you've learned to craft to escape Mother's punishments, to please her by your pretense of meek obedience and loving smile (that one hurts when you have to fake it), and sometimes it works, and sometimes Mother sees right through it, or has a mind of her own and won't listen to any pleas, any reasoning. But today, today you think Mother might relent, she tilts her head to the side, and looks at you, and you make yourself taller, you keep your head high, like Mother likes, you perfect your smile, not too wide, but soft, delicate, graceful, a lady's smile, maybe the lesson's done for today...

You hate dancing. Just like you hate corsets and dresses and tea time and singing and courtsies and everything that prevents you from running down the hill or jumping on Rocinante's back or throwing yourself into the arms of your beloved stable boy, everything that stops you from _living_. You hate that grooming that brings you closer to a fate you despise and a role that scares you, a role you know goes against the very nature of your soul. You used to be different, as a child, you used to look up to your mother, your proud, proud mother people bowed to, your beautiful, beautiful mother with the red lips that always denied you a kiss, your fierce, fierce mother who could make anyone do her bidding. Then you learned what hid behind that pride and that beauty and that power, and you prayed, you prayed to never become like her, to never know the weight of a human heart in the palm of your hand, to do everything to get as far away as you could from that image haunting you in the back of the mirror.

 

Maybe you can't escape your fate, but at least you'll be dragging your feet down the road to Hell.

 

For a blissful moment, you look at Mother, grateful and relieved, but Cora smiles and says in that sickly-sweet voice that scares you more than her screams, “Your feet aren't light enough.”

Mother covers the few steps that keep you from her and you try not to recoil, not to flinch as she forces your chin up with the stick. You have to lower your eyes to look at her.

“I have told you a hundred times. You dance as if your feet are made of lead, when you should be soaring above the ground, as if you were afraid to touch the floor, as if it burned you with every step.”

Mother's eyes have a dangerous glint, and you try not to swallow, she'll see it, feel it, that weakness, your nervosity, but it doesn't matter how much you brace yourself for what's to come, you know you'll end up weeping and begging for mercy nonetheless.

“I think you need a little incentive to really learn, sweetheart.”

You feel the power surging from her fingers – you hate it, hate it when she uses magic, when that old sensation slither along your skin like a possessive snake. You hate the stench on your body lingering hours after, the feeling you'll never be safe, never be clean again. This feeling is even worse than the pain that precedes it.

Sometimes.

It doesn't hurt at first, you feel nothing, until Mother tells you to get back to it and focus. You take a step forward, walking to your dancing instructor, and it hits you as soon as the ball of your feet touches the floor.

It's hot needles piercing through tender skin, blazing embers sinking into vulnerable soles, and your leg gives out from under you, you end up sprawled on the floor, gasping for air, eyes wide with shock.

“Let's hope your dancing lessons will help with your clumsiness, Regina.”

You understand the warning in her eyes, the look most familiar that is never a look of love but a look of threat, you know if you speak out it'll only get worse, you know if you fight it the jaws will only tighten around your neck. Either way, you're always trapped.

“I'm sorry, Mother,” you manage to choke out between two deep breaths, and you slowly get to your feet, and you grit your teeth as the pain flares up again, climbing all the way up to your calves, making your knees twitch with the need to give out again, but you can't. You brace yourself, and you waltz through the center of the room, to the tune of a broken piano, oblivious to the tears raining down your face, to the bewildered look of your instructor who doesn't know what to make of this mad house, and if you let out a gasp, you try to cover it with the music, the rustling of your dress, the sound of your steps, and you don't, you don't look into your Mother's eyes.

 

.

 

It takes three days of this treatment for you to learn how to dance perfectly, and four others to make sure the lesson is correctly _sinking in_.

You can't do a thing for the scar on your lip, but you hide forever the ones on your soles.

 

.

 

You weep with relief when the King doesn't ask you to dance at your wedding.

Ten years later you weep with loneliness as no human soul sneaks a glance to your seat at the farthest table, a seat that's not even a throne, because you've already been replaced before you had time to find your place, and Snow White's dress gleams under the lights of the chandeliers as she twirls, twirls and laughs in her father's arms.

 

.

 

You cast a Curse and you go through 18 years without dancing, or laughing, or loving.

 

.

 

Henry happens, a child, a son, a chance, your heart opens, your feet feel light again.

You don't realize it until you rock him around in your room, swaying gently to the tune of your own voice, and you stop when you do, wait for the pain, but there's only Henry's smile and sleepy eyes, so you keep going, and it's not a dance, but it's healing.

 

.

 

He sees them one day as he plays by your feet and you've just got out of the shower and you're sitting in your pajamas, bare-faced and barefoot and watching him wriggles on your lap with an odd wheezing noise (“Mama I'm a turtle!” “I'm pretty sure turtles don't make noises, baby.” “Sure they do, or they can't talk to each other!”) and he rolls over your legs and ends up on the floor facing your soles. He frowns and reaches out to touch, and your leg twitches, the urge to whimper in fright and anticipated pain barely restrained.

“What's this, Mama?”

You smile, you think you do, and Henry's four, and fooled, and you tell him with a laugh in your throat, one that's wet like a sob, “I've done a very silly thing when I was a little girl, Henry. I ran barefoot over pebbles and it made all these little scars.”

He traces them with his little finger, and it tickles and hurts because your memory hurts like a bruise but you fight to keep still, and Henry's lower lip is wobbling, and his eyes are your world when they look up at you. “Did it hurt, Mama? Did it hurt really bad?”

And somehow your throat closes around the lie and only the truth gets out in front of your child's genuine concern, “Yeah baby. It hurt a lot. But it's all fine now.”

He makes a face – sometimes you catch yourself dreaming he gets it from you – one that is so focused and determined and fierce (so fierce, for such a little soul) and he gently grabs your feet and plants butterfly kisses over one, then the other, “there Mama, I'm making it better,” and you giggle, you giggle and Henry squeals with laughter too and you fall down on the floor and look up at the ceiling, your heart bursting, soaring in your chest, and you're glad Henry can't see the tears leaking in your hair.

 

.

 

He gets the book – the one that reveals your true nature, the one that removes the fog this sleepy, cursed town had slipped over his eyes, the one that turns his doubts into rage. He hides it from you, but you see him read about every version of Snow White's tale with growing dread. One day, one particularly nasty day where Henry never went to his session with Doctor Hopper but to hide instead in his makeshift castle by the beach, that day you bring him home, mad and pale with fear, and you scream, exhausted by his constant temper and blatant distrust and the fights, the fights, the fights, and you shouldn't have screamed, but when you go to apologize, you find Henry brooding on his bed, pretending to be asleep, and his light still on, and a beautiful, illustrated book on the nightstand (not The book, but a fairytale book all the same) and he purposely left it open at one page, where you see a black-clad woman contorts in agony and you don't have to look at the caption ( _“…But they had already put iron slippers over a fire of coals, and they brought them in with tongs and set them before her. Then the Evil Queen had to put on the red-hot slippers and dance till she dropped down **dead**.”_ ), you don't have to look to feel sick and run away from Henry's room, run away to your bathroom where you throw up until everything is burning, burning like red-hot slippers and Mother's eyes and your shame and your fear, and you think about a little boy kissing away your scars, and another one (but the same, oh god, the same, and _you did this_ , you ruined him like you ruin all the people you love) wishing them on you, and there are not enough tears in your body, not enough room for your pain.

 

.

 

They're all waiting for you, that whole foreign court, your friends, your son, expecting you – not you, _the Savior_ – to go to that ball, be their leader, and you can't, be like them, act like them, because (you're a fraud) you'll always be (clumsy) the Evil Queen from the tale (monster) and you can't handle not being good enough tonight, not when so much relies on you, you can't – "I don't know how to dance", you mumble, avoiding Snow's gaze, and the girl, princess, naive idiot, she tilts her head, she understands about another piece of your past that unveils, and she used to be blissfully ignorant but lately she's become stupidly _knowing_ – and then Charming steps up, him and his wife always a united front to unsettle you, and you glance up at him, almost shy, you blink at the easy smile, the dopey face, the warm eyes, the _acceptance_. There's this word welling up like tears in your throat, the biggest, scariest word in the world, _family_ , and you can't quite say no, and you twirl together, and twirl, and twirl, and you're high, too high, so high on this feeling, on the laughter bubbling in your chest, and Snow's hands settle on your waist when you're a little too enthusiastic with your hips and David's strong and sure hand never let go of yours and _oh_ , you think, _oh, this is what not hurting is like._

 

.

 

The stars are brimming with glee that evening, giggling with kind malice and childish excitement and whispered secrets, and new memories, filled with light and life and love, are slowly covering the old, dark, wounded ones, swathing them in soft lace of hope, and then Henry comes to steal you away, asking “for a dance with the Savior” (and winking, and whispering, “I'm scoring points, Mom”, and you try to glare because you saw him with that girl, your precious baby boy much too young to start dating, but your smile is too wide and he's never fallen for that face, the only one never afraid of you). You stumble through the first steps, so does he, he doesn't know how to dance either, you never taught him, but still he wants this, his first ball, to be with you, and you look around for Charming, nervous, you're not sure enough of yourself to try to teach something you've only discovered how to do right (it feels like your whole life, doesn't it) but Henry smiles. “It's okay Mom, I've got this.”

Somehow your feet settle above his own as he struggles a little to lift you up, and you clutch hard at his shoulders and he wraps his lanky limbs awkwardly around you, and you say “Henry” in a breathless sigh but his words, his bright eyes are stronger than your uncertainty. He winks. “Don't worry, I'm big enough now, Mom.” He has this peculiar way of looking at you, he makes this face – your own, you want to say – like he's got you all figured out, and maybe he remembers that time, the scars, maybe he understands now, and it's not really a dance, it's just the two of you hugging each other and rocking slowly with heavy feet, but your heart is light, and everything is gentle. Healing.


End file.
